Borderlands Strategy Guide – Weapons Proficiency and Storage Deck

As I said in my last guide article, each character has a favored weapon type, but you aren’t restricted to it at all. On the contrary, you can become proficient with any weapon type after using it for long enough. There are a total of seven different weapon types – pistols, shotguns, SMGs, assault rifles, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and Eridian. Revolvers are counted as pistols. Each time you shoot an enemy – each hit counts, not just kills – the weapon type that you’re using gains a proficiency point. After so many points, that weapon type will level up and you’ll gain specific bonuses when using it. For example, leveling up your sniper rifle proficiency will give you stability bonuses, which reduces the wobble and shifting of the sniper rifle scope, making your shots more accurate.

Storage Deck Space and Upgrades

Your character can hold a ridiculous amount of stuff, far more than any mere mortal, but you will eventually hit a limit. With no storage system in place, this can be a bit of a pain, but there are ways to upgrade your inventory space, allowing you to hold more items and ammunition.

Upgrading your maximum ammunition is easy, it just costs money. You can buy storage deck upgrades at ammo vending machines. You must buy a separate upgrade for each type of ammo, as well as grenades, but you should only be focusing on a few weapon types anyway, so it shouldn’t totally break the bank. Each upgrades increases the amount you can store by roughly 25%. You don’t need to buy them in order, either. If you miss upgrade two, you’ll have no problem buying upgrade three.

The real benefit comes from storage deck upgrades that upgrade your actual inventory, increasing the number of guns, mods, and shields that you can hold. You start off with twelve slots, which seems like a lot until you realize how much loot you’ll be picking up. Upgrading your inventory space isn’t as easy as simply buying an item from a vending machine. For each upgrade, you’ll need to complete Claptrap sidequests all over Pandora. In these quests, you’ll have to repair a broken Claptrap unit, just like you did in the very beginning of the game. Simply hunt down the repair kit and fix the Claptrap up to be rewarded with the storage deck upgrade. There are a total of 10 Claptrap missions, allowing you to ultimately hold up to 42 items.

At the start of the game, you can only equip two weapons at a time. As the game progresses, you’ll unlock two more slots, allowing you to wield four weapons at a time and really vary up your arsenal. This unlocks happen after specific missions. After you complete the Return to Zed plot mission, you’ll unlock a third weapon slot. The fourth slot will unlock when you complete Road Warriors: Bandit Apocalypse, the final mission in the Dahl Headlands.